There are different reasons people use Unix-like operating systems, including configurable, availability free of charge, powerful command line interface an many more. Some people are motivated by the moral issue: they reject non-free software. Specifically for such users Free Software Foundation developed Guidelines for Free System Distributions and created the list of absolutely free ("as in freedom") distributions. In this article we are going to look at the most recent entry on the list - Parabola GNU/Linux.

Writing software is what I do for a living. If these people had their way, my job wouldn't exist.

And it should exist. App developers work damn hard to keep their skills up to date, and to write quality, bug free software. Why should the product of months (sometimes years) of hard graft not be allowed to be sold for profit?

I have nothing against FOSS, in fact I really want it to succeed. But there's room for both types of software, and to rule out things like device drivers is totally nuts.

But there's room for both types of software, and to rule out things like device drivers is totally nuts.

Yeah, this thing annoys me too. I use almost only FOSS software but if someone wants to sell their closed-code for profit that's none of my business. I'll probably never buy their product in a million years but that's my choice.

I'll probably never buy their product in a million years but that's my choice.

with drivers you have no choice. If the blobs are not platform specific they count as firmware. Otherwise it is anti-competitive, immoral and possibly illegal.

It seems that UEFI would solve this problem with bytecode drivers in UEFI. But don't hold your breath. If the process is not standardized with standard cross-platform exported interfaces (but with user-space blobs), it would mean the death of FOSS.

You mean like Apple telling developers targeting certain of its systems which tools to use?

What I'm missing is why FSF promoting a certain license philosophy, clearly defining what they mean, and then providing a list of certain products that conform to that philosophy for those who want to adhere to it is worse than a corporation promoting a certain license type and enforcing it in their market space by banning non-compliant software.

In both cases you get the same choice - don't use their products or recommended products.

I'm fine with both Apple (I use an iPad) and FSF (I use various Linux products on a lot of systems, and release some of my own software under GPL) as long as I still have a choice.

Writing software is what I do for a living. If these people had their way, my job wouldn't exist.

And it should exist. App developers work damn hard to keep their skills up to date, and to write quality, bug free software. Why should the product of months (sometimes years) of hard graft not be allowed to be sold for profit?

No one is saying that. There are people that want libre software. There is nothing in any FSF license that prohibits anyone from selling the resulting product for money. There are people who do want all of their software to be libre-free. What's wrong with that? If you were supreme emperor of the world, would you ban free ( either libre or beer free) software?

I have nothing against FOSS, in fact I really want it to succeed. But there's room for both types of software, and to rule out things like device drivers is totally nuts.

By the other section of your comment, its kind of clear that you feel that FOSS is out to get you. In any case, its clear that Parabola isn't for you. Great. If there is room for both, then what the heck was the point of your comment? Live and let live. You have your choice from a complete no free software at all Operating system ( Windows) to do what ever the heck you want with it ( FreeBSD) to do everything with it except abuse other people's ability to do the same ( Debian Linux Parabola,etc).

For me it is akin to some priest shouting at me in a square about how I am going to hell because I don't believe in his religion. Yes you in my mind you have every right to do it, but I also have every right to get pissed off about it.

Writing software is what I do for a living. If these people had their way, my job wouldn't exist.

And it should exist. App developers work damn hard to keep their skills up to date, and to write quality, bug free software. Why should the product of months (sometimes years) of hard graft not be allowed to be sold for profit?

I have nothing against FOSS, in fact I really want it to succeed. But there's room for both types of software, and to rule out things like device drivers is totally nuts.

I think you're missing the point.

You said yourself that there's room for both types of software and this is one that caters for the free market.

If you sat down and thought about it, Windows massively outsells Linux and OS X isn't doing too badly these days either. Thus the non-free market is covered. So distributions like this are not trying to lot the downfall of Windows nor OS X (such a comment would be absurd), they're just offering users the option of other extreme.

As you said yourself, there's room for both. So I wouldn't get upset by it.

"...Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible — just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding...."

The GPL is especially harmful against aspiring software developers. With BSD, you can take it, make it better, and sell it. Not with the GPL. (yes, you can sell it, but soon you will compete against a free as in beer modified version of your own program) For a small company, the best way to make money is selling licenses, the whole “make money through services” works best with big companies.

This is essentially what Oracle are doing with Unbreakable Linux, sell a RHEL but rebadged at a lower cost.

A less publicized and unintended use of the GPL is that it is very favorable to large companies that want to undercut software companies. In other words, the GPL is well suited for use as a marketing weapon, potentially reducing overall economic benefit and contributing to monopolistic behavior.

1st) It's about choices.
2nd) I sell my open source php & mysql code for profit. I get money from selling it, and they get the final result + the code. They can do what they want with it (+ I gave the source code quite good documentation too). So.. open source and profit.
3rd) Be confident with your skill, sir.

First, please let me make a technical point. They say that all software should be FOSS. That doesn't mean making anything illegal. If software licenses were based on contract law, that would indeed make some kind of contracts illegal. But the fact is that copyright is not based on contract law, it's simply a legal monopoly. When you abolish a legal monopoly, you don't make anything illegal, you make legal what was previously illegal. On the other hand, if someone wants to abolish NDAs, then yes, that would be making something illegal.

Writing software is what I do for a living. If these people had their way, my job wouldn't exist.

There would still be custom software and SaaS. Google makes a lot of money with unreleased software.

And it should exist. App developers work damn hard to keep their skills up to date, and to write quality, bug free software. Why should the product of months (sometimes years) of hard graft not be allowed to be sold for profit?